oskar
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Post by oskar on May 9, 2011 11:38:34 GMT -5
Oskar, If I knew for a fact that killing one man would save one hundred thousand innocent people, my conscience would be clear when I got around to taking up the matter with God. That's a red herring of humungous proportions. I could rationalize that one into ordering a hit on you.
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Pax
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Post by Pax on May 9, 2011 11:38:36 GMT -5
Peltigera, you said, "Even if we are to assume the guilt of Osama (not something I am willing to do, as it happens)".
I said, "You may not believe Osama bin Laden is guilty." I did not say, "You don't believe Osama bin Laden is guilty." You said you weren't willing to assume he was guilty. I acknowledged your uncertainty. I didn't say I believed you were saying he was innocent.
Anyway, a trial at that point for that man would be a useless formality that would have a cost in lives. I'm not willing to pay that cost, even if you are.
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Pax
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Post by Pax on May 9, 2011 11:39:36 GMT -5
Not really, Oskar, unless you have reason to believe that I have the power to cause the deaths of one hundred thousand people, as Bush has the power to do in March 2003... do you?
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oskar
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Post by oskar on May 9, 2011 11:40:21 GMT -5
Peltigera, you said, "Even if we are to assume the guilt of Osama (not something I am willing to do, as it happens)". I said, "You may not believe Osama bin Laden is guilty." I did not say, "You don't believe Osama bin Laden is guilty." You said you weren't willing to assume he was guilty. I acknowledged your uncertainty. I didn't say I believed you were saying he was innocent. Anyway, a trial at that point for that man would be a useless formality that would have a cost in lives. I'm not willing to pay that cost, even if you are. And how does a trial cost lives?
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Pax
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Post by Pax on May 9, 2011 11:41:16 GMT -5
Oskar,
Read #8 again.
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oskar
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Post by oskar on May 9, 2011 11:42:32 GMT -5
Not really, Oskar, unless you have reason to believe that I have the power to cause the deaths of one hundred thousand people, as Bush has the power to do in March 2003... do you? So assassinating Bush would have been justified?
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Pax
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Post by Pax on May 9, 2011 11:43:39 GMT -5
Oskar,
Read #16 again.
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oskar
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Post by oskar on May 9, 2011 11:45:39 GMT -5
That wasn't the question. The question was "would it have been justified" and "not would it have been moral".
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oskar
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Post by oskar on May 9, 2011 11:50:38 GMT -5
It rather boils down to "Does something have to be moral in order to be just?" and, conversely, "Does something have to be just in order to be moral?" Of course, one can always take the easy way out and and rationalize it all away.
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Pax
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Post by Pax on May 9, 2011 11:50:42 GMT -5
#16 I think very clearly states my position relating to the question you raised in #35. Given the subject matter I can't be more explicit, but within those bounds I think my meaning was very clear to a fluent English speaker.
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Post by patchoulli on May 9, 2011 11:51:33 GMT -5
Pax said, "To you, justice requires that there be a trial in there somewhere."
But that's just it, Pax. That's what our country is all about. We don't just grab you up off the streets and behead you for your crime, we give you a trial. What we told the world with bin Laden's execution, is that we make the rules as they are convenient for us and we will ignore our own justice system when we feel like it.
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oskar
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Post by oskar on May 9, 2011 11:51:36 GMT -5
#16 I think very clearly states my position relating to the question you raised in #35. Given the subject matter I can't be more explicit, but if you're not fluent in English, I can't help you. The condescension returns when you get jammed up, eh?
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Pax
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Post by Pax on May 9, 2011 11:54:45 GMT -5
I'm not jammed up at all. I just don't like repeating myself. It's not so good for you if twice in a row I was able to answer your questions by telling you to look back at prior responses... you're either not reading what I'm writing, which is rude, or you're not comprehending it, and that I can't help you with.
And frankly, with #16, I couldn't be more clear. Seriously, anyone who's fluent in English would get my meaning. So either you're not fluent in English, which of course I know you are, or you've gotten to the point that you've run out of arguments and you're trying to just toy with me.
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Pax
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Post by Pax on May 9, 2011 12:08:23 GMT -5
Peltigera, regarding:
"Pax, your argument seems to be that justice is only worth bothering with if it is free. To follow your argument to its conclusion, we would never try to deal with violent men I can only conclude that justice has no value for you. It is very valuable to me. "
No, that's not what I'm saying. I'm saying two things. One, I question your assumption that justice requires a trial no matter what. Normally I would agree with you, but this is a special case of a man for whom there are already multiple ironclad lines of evidence over many years proving his responsibility for that which he is accused of. If that were all there was to it, then I would still want the man tried, as a matter of justice, and I said more or less as much in one of my earliest posts when I said that if considered alone shooting an unarmed man rather than capturing him was an immoral choice. But that's not all there is to it. There is a cost in lives to capturing him rather than killing him. That forces pragmatism. Had his guilt not been assured, again, I would have agreed that he should have been captured rather than killed, so that his guilt could be determined. But in this case, both apply: We have a man whose guilt is not in question, and almost certainly there would be a cost in lives to hold him captive (in the case of the ICC, indefinitely, as they do not execute prisoners).
These usually don't apply in such crystal-clear fashion to other "dangerous men," so, as I have said many times now, Osama bin Laden is a special case, and I still agree that other "dangerous men," all other things being equal, must be brought to trial, the truth outed, and justice sought.
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Post by patchoulli on May 9, 2011 12:14:32 GMT -5
Lives may be lost anyway if terrorists decide to use the execution for the reason to kill. Once we've done this sort of execution to one, what's to say we won't do it to others - to save lives and money? Where is the line drawn?
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Pax
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Post by Pax on May 9, 2011 12:24:15 GMT -5
Actually it's been done a LOT in history and it'll be done again. This doesn't represent some massive break from what went before, a dangerous precedent, a line crossed that should never have been crossed.
And, sure, there may be some vengeance attacks due to the fact that bin Laden was killed. Then they'll die down and they'll get back to the business of doing what they do for their standard reasons.
However, if bin Laden had been captured, then put on trial, and on TV for months, which he would be, that's months of ongoing burning reminder of their humiliation and therefore months of ongoing reasons to step up terror attacks only AFTER which they will go down once he's been executed by the United States. Or, if tried by the ICC, he will remain imprisoned, and terror attacks will remain heightened with periodic messages that the attacks "will never stop until bin Laden is freed." Either way, given this reasoning, I conclude that letting him live would have cost lives.
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Post by patchoulli on May 9, 2011 12:37:04 GMT -5
And you are certainly entitled to your opinion.
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Post by patchoulli on May 9, 2011 13:22:30 GMT -5
This occurred to me while I was wrestling Mail Merge (killing things comes to me when working with Mail Merge!) If we can just cherry pick whomever we decide to execute would that not put a stop to all future wars? We would just go in and kill the bad guy and no one else would get hurt. I would be all for that.
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oskar
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Post by oskar on May 9, 2011 16:05:03 GMT -5
This occurred to me while I was wrestling Mail Merge (killing things comes to me when working with Mail Merge!) If we can just cherry pick whomever we decide to execute would that not put a stop to all future wars? We would just go in and kill the bad guy and no one else would get hurt. I would be all for that. So who gets to determine who the bad guy is?
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Pax
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Post by Pax on May 9, 2011 16:26:59 GMT -5
"And you are certainly entitled to your opinion. "
Indeed. :-). You as well. I was just about to say, let's agree to disagree.
As for assassination as a way to stop future wars... nah, wouldn't work. After all, if you got rid of Bush in late 2002, in an attempt to save 100,000 innocent lives in Iraq, it'd have backfired; you'd have gotten something worse.
Anyway I remember reading in a book by Heinlein, called "Friday," set in the future and about a "combat courier," where her mentor discusses with her the purpose of assassination: It is the art of removing the competent leaders while carefully leaving in place the incompetent ones, so that your enemy collapses from within. So, doing this doesn't stop war, but it causes them to be less competently fought, so ending sooner, saving lives.
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Post by patchoulli on May 10, 2011 2:17:24 GMT -5
"As for assassination as a way to stop future wars... nah, wouldn't work. After all, if you got rid of Bush in late 2002, in an attempt to save 100,000 innocent lives in Iraq, it'd have backfired; you'd have gotten something worse."
And that does not apply to bin Laden's assassination because . . . ?
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Pax
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Post by Pax on May 10, 2011 3:59:02 GMT -5
Just to be clear, Patch, considering only the effect of removing bin Laden from leadership of al Qaeda, does it really matter if it's through assassination or by capture? Are you asking me if we should have left him in place?
In any event, depending on the situation, whether you get something worse is kind of a 50/50 chance thing anyway. In this case, it may actually help, because Zarqawi is a divisive figure, though it's yet to be seen of course whether such a decentralized organization such as al Qaeda from an operational standpoint really needs a central organizing figure. Where removing bin Laden may actually help is in recruiting... he personally inspired a lot of jihadis. Now that he's gone, there is no central charismatic face for the cause. That may be the most important effect of all.
Talking about personality, come to think of it, speaking of the Bush/Cheney case, the same dynamic may apply. Bush was not too bright but very charismatic... I used to call him "the spokesmodel." Cheney I think was the real power behind the throne, but he had the charisma of a sea urchin. Had Cheney been elevated to the office of President, in terms of what he was capable of he was notably more dangerous than Bush, but to make big things happen in America you need the support of the American people, and it wouldn't have been nearly as easy for him to sell it as it was for Bush just because of his personality.
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wheelspinner
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Post by wheelspinner on May 10, 2011 4:24:22 GMT -5
for whom there are already multiple ironclad lines of evidence over many years proving his responsibility for that which he is accused of. This is dead wrong. The USA has never been able to make out an ironclad case against Osama for 9/11. The FBI Most Wanted warrant doesn't mention 9/11. It has never gone to a grand jury for a charge to be formulated. You place great reliance on Osama's own claims, but there's nothing stopping him recanting and claiming that they were pure braggadacio. Then what? You fall back on evidence gained in Gitmo under torture? Good luck. You keep claiming "this is a special case". There are no special cases; as soon as you start with that argument, you cannot say where it will stop. If trials were good enough for Nazis responsible for the death of millions, they are good enough for Osama. If the ICC can deal with Pinochet, Milosevic and Charles Taylor, they can deal with Osama. The USA just could not be arsed taking the trouble to bring this man to REAL justice. I'm genuinely surprised that you are defending extra-judicial murder. Osama will not be the only "special case" - who else are you prepared to execute without trial?
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Post by patchoulli on May 10, 2011 5:50:10 GMT -5
No, I'm not asking you if we should have left him in place. You are quite clear that you think we did the right thing. I do, however, wish you would answer the question regarding how we decide who gets a trial and who doesn't. Oskar, Wheelspinner and I have all asked you that.
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Post by cattleman on May 10, 2011 5:57:13 GMT -5
Pax, Your whole argument seems to be based on a "this might have happened" argument. It might have, but anyone can reply with a "but this could happen now" argument.
Speculation on possibilities isn't a justification for murdering someone.
WS, Exactly.
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Pax
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Post by Pax on May 10, 2011 9:19:30 GMT -5
Patch, I HAVE answered that question, I thought thoroughly. For bin Laden specifically, it's been in virtually every post I made, but most particularly in the first post, #8. The more general case I addressed in #43, which culminated in this: "in this case, both apply: We have a man whose guilt is not in question, and almost certainly there would be a cost in lives to hold him captive."
Do you guys actually read through my entire posts, or do I really need to cut back on them? I'm not trying to be obnoxious, I really want to know. If you're not reading them because of their length then I need to learn to be more concise. I know that I write long posts and I can see where that might be a problem. If you're not reading them all through then I can pretty much guarantee that there's a high risk that you're not really going to understand my position fully. Let me know and I'll try to be more brief.
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Pax
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Post by Pax on May 10, 2011 9:40:54 GMT -5
"This is dead wrong. The USA has never been able to make out an ironclad case against Osama for 9/11"
Oh for Pete's sake, WS. The FBI doesn't need to. Osama bin Laden took responsibility for it on video numerous times starting in 2006 and it's been general knowledge since that time. As I said in #21, "there were numerous tapes released by Osama bin Laden where he is seen personally admitting to each crime." As I said to Peltigera, "you may not believe Osama bin Laden was guilty, but he did."
As far as that goes, it's going to be evidence like the FBI's that would be used to convict him at any trial. And the outcome of the trial is only as good as the evidence given. So, if you question the quality of the evidence, then you question the quality of the trial, and therefore the quality of the justice it meets, so you have gained nothing with the trial except a distraction and a placebo for your expectation that justice=trial, and trial=justice.
As for "special cases," every rule has its exception. I don't come to my conclusion lightly and as always I have reasons to back it up, concrete reasons, not kumbaya reasons. And I'm not "speculating on what might have happened." It goes to risk mitigation, and risk mitigation is a branch of mathematics related to probability. I could ask you to bet me one thousand dollars that the next ten coin flips will all come up heads, and you will refuse, and I can say that you refused because you're speculating on what might happen.
Again, trying to keep it simple (and as brief as possible): Good condoms have a 5% failure rate, which means that out of every twenty times you use a condom, on average, it will fail. That's risk. And it doesn't just mean that on any given use there is a certain chance that it will break. It means that given enough time and given enough opportunities, a brand new same-brand out of the packet condom WILL fail.
Regarding added risk: You can use vaseline with a condom, but that's a bad idea, because it'll weaken it, and increase its risk of failure. You've made a choice that not only means that any particular usage is more likely to fail, but that over the same period of time, it will fail more frequently.
So, the cold logic of the mathematics of probability and risk applies to Osama bin Laden this way. By killing him we have sharply humiliated al Qaeda and they have sworn revenge and that increases risk, so, in the near term they will probably kill more people than otherwise would have died. However, by capturing him, we would have drawn out their humiliation over months, perhaps years, reminding them every day of their need and commitment to reverse their humiliation. Entirely aside from the separate but new risk given their added motive to commit more and bigger acts of terrorism in attempts to force his freedom. Cold mathematics: Added risk equals more failures occurring more frequently. In this case, that translates into innocent lives lost. It's not speculation, it's math.
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Post by patchoulli on May 10, 2011 10:39:41 GMT -5
Pax said,"in this case, both apply: We have a man whose guilt is not in question, and almost certainly there would be a cost in lives to hold him captive."
Wheelspinner said,"You keep claiming "this is a special case". There are no special cases; as soon as you start with that argument, you cannot say where it will stop. If trials were good enough for Nazis responsible for the death of millions, they are good enough for Osama. If the ICC can deal with Pinochet, Milosevic and Charles Taylor, they can deal with Osama."
It has also been brought up that you are speculating on whether or not "lives would be lost".
You cannot execute someone without giving him his trial just because you think something (lives lost) might happen. That is the law in the US.
Personally I do find it difficult to read through some of your posts because I'm at work and have to be quickly in and out of here. Would never, ever try to hurt your feelings, and I do try to read through the whole thing when I'm home.
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wheelspinner
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Post by wheelspinner on May 10, 2011 15:46:40 GMT -5
Oh for Pete's sake, WS. The FBI doesn't need to. Osama bin Laden took responsibility for it on video numerous times starting in 2006 and it's been general knowledge since that time. As I said in #21, "there were numerous tapes released by Osama bin Laden where he is seen personally admitting to each crime." As I said to Peltigera, "you may not believe Osama bin Laden was guilty, but he did."
As far as that goes, it's going to be evidence like the FBI's that would be used to convict him at any trial. And the outcome of the trial is only as good as the evidence given. So, if you question the quality of the evidence, then you question the quality of the trial, and therefore the quality of the justice it meets, so you have gained nothing with the trial except a distraction and a placebo for your expectation that justice=trial, and trial=justice.
As I said, there is nothing to stop him recanting on those. A couple of tapes is nowhere near enough to convict somebody of such a massive crime. There is no hard evidence. The FBI is on record as saying that. If you had evidence, you could have gone to a grand jury any time in the last ten years and drawn up indictments. You didn't. That says one of two things: you have no evidence, and/or you couldn't be arsed following natural justice in Osama's case, and never intended to.
It is not my expectation that justice=trial, and trial=justice. It's a centuries-old fundamental legal principle that is one of the foundations of your Constitution. There are no exceptions to these principles, no "special cases".
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Post by cattleman on May 10, 2011 17:56:33 GMT -5
So, the cold logic of the mathematics of probability and risk applies to Osama bin Laden this way. By killing him we have sharply humiliated al Qaeda and they have sworn revenge and that increases risk, so, in the near term they will probably kill more people than otherwise would have died. However, by capturing him, we would have drawn out their humiliation over months, perhaps years, reminding them every day of their need and commitment to reverse their humiliation. Entirely aside from the separate but new risk given their added motive to commit more and bigger acts of terrorism in attempts to force his freedom. Cold mathematics: Added risk equals more failures occurring more frequently. In this case, that translates into innocent lives lost. It's not speculation, it's math.
If it actually was the "cold logic of mathematics" you might have a case (although still not a good one). But its not. Its your assessment of the psychology of OBL's followers and there is a hell of a lot of supposition involved.
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